Futuros Trabajos

My composition and performance have evolved through my experiences with the Edges Ensemble. I have had the opportunity to explore many types of indeterminate and experimental scores with varying instrumentation, from Christian Wolff’s Stones (1969) to Jürg Frey’s Un champ de tendresse (2011), in which we played leaves. Some of these scores require very close attention, such as Christian Wolff’s

Changing the System (1973-1974), in which we had very prescriptive parts to play as quartets whilst other quartets performed their parts simultaneously, or John Cage’s Variations II (1961), which required an immense effort to take a random dispersal of lines and dots and translate them into precisely timed sounds. On the other hand, some pieces could be performed with less preparation, such as Sam Sfirri’s The Undulating Land, for two ensembles (2010). This piece has a beautiful simplicity, as two rows of performers stand across from each other; in pairs they play sounds in unison followed by the next pair; once the end of the line is reached the performance is reversed. Each performer chooses their own sound, which allows anyone to

access the piece whether they are singing or ringing a child’s toy bell, as a non- musician or established one.

Figure 1—Edges Ensemble performing The Undulating Land at the Site Gallery in Sheffield, May 2010

30 Having experienced the work of different composers’ and having improvised with many people, my own skills have developed and my understanding of what music can be has evolved.

The pieces that struck me the most as a composer and inspired me to explore similar ideas with my own compositions were by members of the Wandelweiser collective. I was most struck by Manfred Werder, who said to me, at the Site Gallery in Sheffield (about his piece 2008(1)) that we [Edges Ensemble, dispersed amongst a crowd in a gallery opening] ‘should create a ripple in the room; as soon as we are loud enough for them [the audience] to notice us we should stop as they question whether they missed anything at all’. This seems to be much more about the intention to play and less about the sonic outcome. This is certainly a piece which anyone could play, and in fact a piece I use on a daily basis in a classroom situation when I suspect the children are not listening. I do not need to shout; I can simply play a quiet note or play a soft sound and get their attention and most are not sure how I managed it. Whilst it has this effect on an audience, as a performer the control and thought required is immense: ‘How do I know when I am too loud or noticeable?’ Edges have spent a lot of time on Ben Isaac’s Between II (2009), which explores the movement from inaudible to audible.

‘Move (as smoothly as possible) from inaudibility to audibility as many times as there are performers. Never loud, usually high.’

Having performed this with both Edges Ensemble and children, the energy around when the sound might become audible requires a certain amount of focus and control7 but can also be entertaining as sometimes it comes out more loudly than expected or not as you intended. Pieces like this, which explore the extremes of something—for example sound, duration, etc.—give the performer a chance to learn

31 something new about their instrument, and this piece is an excellent one to use with a new group of children playing instruments for the first time, as they learn how to make a sound and how to stop it.

There are too many pieces to mention individually, but I have considered what makes something a piece ‘for anyone’ as opposed to a piece for professional musicians.

A piece which has unspecified instrumentation or duration could be suitable for all. A piece which uses unconventional sound sources—for example, leaves—and gives text or graphic instructions on how to perform the piece, rather than traditional notation, could be suitable for all.

My journey as a composer has been the greatest over the last three years. During my undergraduate composition work I used traditional notation but played with it, stretched it and tried to achieve the sort of effect found in a graphic or text score through a five-line stave. I was trying to find a way of capturing the ‘essence’ of an improvisation or indeterminate piece.

My earlier indeterminate pieces 63 Events and Noises were written for Edges

Ensemble and were my first pieces without traditional notation. With 63 Events I first explored blocks of sound (events) divided with silence. I wanted the audience to be able to start to identify when an event they had heard before had come again.8 Noises was written for an Edges rehearsal when Philip Thomas asked us to come with noise making things. It allowed us, as performers, to identify where in the score fellow performers were, which enabled us to choose whether to join them, to do something different, or just listen.

8 _{Track 1 on the CD}

32 Whilst composing my piece for Ensemble Plus Minus, For Violin, Accordion,

Clarinet, I knew I was writing for specific instruments and I wanted to write for their unique properties. I attempted to create the environment of improvisation through real-time choices. At the end of each sound event the performers had to interpret the next situation and decide how to proceed. The score gave instructions to the

performers but they were choices for the performers to make—e.g. ‘hum a new pitch’—so the performers had to then make a choice on how to proceed. In this way the performers had to be focused for each instruction and make clear decisions before making their sounds. They were unable to learn what comes next, as opposed to a more traditionally notated piece that could be memorised. I spent a long time on the notation for this piece, trying to keep it as simple as possible without using too many pieces of paper, and I wanted to have all players able to see what instructions the others were following too. The notation morphed from three semibreve-looking shapes in a space to something that looked a lot less like traditional notation.

Figure 2— Initial composition sketch for Violin Accordion Clarinet, attempting to show how the sounds move away from unison with semibreve-like notation.

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Figure 3— second composition sketch for Violin Accordion Clarinet, attempting to show more information and independent instructions for each of the instruments.

Figure 4— Extract from final score for Violin Accordion Clarinet, showing how the notation can give different instructions to each instrument. For a key, please see composition portfolio pages 9-10.

The reason for writing in this way was so that the performers could never completely relax. The performance, even when practised, should never be the same twice.

34 With For Johnny Chang I wanted a similar feel of real-time decisions.9 I used the notation setup from the piece for Ensemble Plus Minus and then added a few string- specific ideas.10 I know that Johnny Chang wrote out the score in a different way for performance, simply writing in a list the decisions he needed to make—for example, ‘glissando to a new pitch microtonally away’—so it could fit on one sheet of paper, as the spacing on my score filled two pages and for the performance he would have a lot of scores to handle. He did this after he had seen me and we had discussed how the piece might be approached. As the piece was only to last 30 seconds, he did not have long to make the decisions, and having them closer together was easier for the eye.

Figure 5— composition sketch from For Johnny Chang, considering how to show instructions and how timings might work for a longer version.

9 _{CD track 3}

35 The most work went into my score For Four Voices for EXAUDI (a professional vocal group with a specialism in new music), as it became the main platform for exploring the idea that everyone can get involved in this approach to music making. Everyone has a voice, and therefore this was the perfect opportunity to make

something that I could use to cross the boundaries of my various roles. I wanted to challenge myself to write something that would work not only for EXAUDI but also for the children I taught and the Edges Ensemble.

This piece was the most challenging for me as a composer, and it had the most different draft versions through which it developed. Some were colourful, some were prescriptive, and through many variations I arrived at a text score.

Figure 6— Extract initial draft for EXAUDI piece using similar notation to earlier pieces.

36 This initial idea seemed too complex.

Figure 7—Sketch for EXAUDI piece. Circles indicate the leader of the sound and who should be singing but not what choices they are making.

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Figure 8—This was the score initially sent to EXAUDI. Its colours are suggestions of how the sounds may shift rather than something to follow.

Figure 9—Alternative score written to accompany the text score; colours show possibilities and gradients of colour glissandi, different borders to the boxes indicating a new pitch or a microtonal shift.

38 In the end I decided that my trying to make it ‘simpler’ I was over complicating

things, and that having shown the score to my primary school band the resulting complexity added too much to the discussion and did not help the performance. We used only the text score from then on.

Inadvertently, this text score was very traditional in its similarity to works by the Wandelweiser composers or other contemporary text scores. This is a world within which I have performed for a long time and it has impacted my vocabulary as a composer.

What was created was a text score which was very formal. There were suggestions during my workshop with EXAUDI that the wording could be more playful and childlike, so I took the score to my class band to see what they thought. We chatted through the score to see what they understood. We learned some new vocabulary, such as ‘timbre’ and ‘glissando’, and they grasped it well. They were keen to try it straightaway, excited by the opportunity to conduct the group and choose the instruction to change the sound of the group themselves. So I decided to leave the score as it was.

The score presents each performer with the chance to conduct the rest of the group, and with that the power to choose what should happen next. There are five options the conductor can indicate when it gets to their turn.

1. same pitch

2. slightly different pitch 3. glissando

4. new pitch

5. new vocal timbre

(These instructions relate to the end product of the event before.)

I tried many ways to show that the performers had choices to make and also that those choices should relate to the sound they made at the end of the previous event. There are at least four versions of the score before I came to the text version. I considered also how to adapt it for Edges Ensemble and for others, and then came

39 the second version For Edges Voices, which allows for ‘as many events as there are voices’ to make the piece accessible to any size of group. Making the text score with only five things to remember also made the piece accessible to those who do not remember their music, or, thinking of the school children, do not have the support at home to come with all the necessary equipment. A vocal piece requiring no score once its instructions have been introduced worked well for my school children, which can be seen in the video shouting what each number means.11

The issue or question around this research has often been how to measure the success of a performance when looking at such different performers and what constitutes a quality performance. Prévost (1995, 133) says, ‘one moral decision above all determines the internal success of an improvisation: the decision to pursue sincerity of action’. Whilst my composition is clearly not an improvisation, the

instructions I have given have been intended to create in the performer the sort of real-time situation one might encounter in an improvisation. I am less interested in the sonic outcome of a performance than in the commitment of an ensemble to focus and perform together with the intention to perform as accurately as possible.

On the DVD12 there is a clip of the band performing the EXAUDI piece in its final version; for any number of voices with as many events as there are people. Whilst this is not a polished performance, it shows the children communicating with each other and enjoying the piece.

The way in which the different groups responded to the score For Four Voices was very interesting. Initially EXAUDI seemed to struggle with the playful nature of the work. Once they realised that it was acceptable to laugh and to enjoy the process of

11_{11 on the USB – I say the number and they sing it. 14 on the USB I say the} number and they shout what the instruction should be.

40 performing it the flow of the piece arrived and they seemed to be able to embrace the possibilities open to them as they had fun.13

My notes written just after the EXAUDI workshop:

Started well - they had prepared the original with circles score and I said ‘i’ve written you a new score’.

They read it through. I think that they were definitely over complicating things. They wanted to predetermine more than they needed. E.g. not just which modifications they were going to choose from but the order they would be used for each event.

Then when they started the first person who could choose modifications went through a number of them!

Initially silences were very short and very regular. As versions progressed they played a little more with the durations of silence maintaining that a minute of silence is a ‘long silence’. (8 minutes is a good length for a silence!)

In the final version there was the most contrasting silences - the longest being approximately 28 seconds.

There was however one event which went straight on to another catching them out slightly which was nice.

Edits to make to the score:

simplify it further - for a 5 year old as james says create clarity for 8 events

link to the graphics in some way?

use of sounds and events in sentence about dynamics perhaps an instruction to not perform with the score?

All performers said to me that they had enjoyed the piece. One comment was that it was ‘fun to do’ and ‘hard not to laugh out loud at the different sounds people were making’. The general consensus was that it was nice to do it without being too serious. That it was fun. I had a lovely conversation with Gareth, who sang the piece, about how it was nice that it didn’t take itself too seriously. The conversation went along the lines of i enjoyed the piece, it was fun, the funniness came from people trying to maintain different timbres or pitches exactly and their ‘failure’ to do so was what was funny’ The piece, as

41 are all my current pieces, is about intention. Intention to achieve what has been asked of you, making a good attempt and sticking doggedly to

whatever the outcome of it may be, the hilarity that ensues is simply a bonus.

For me as a teacher and as a composer and as a performer music has to be fun. Life has to be fun otherwise what is the point? If I want to write music which both children, amateurs and professionals can engage with on a common platform there needs to be some fun. Fun allows inhibitions to lessen, for things to be tried safely as any ‘failure’ can be construed as funny and part and parcel of the learning and exploring process.

If I can’t present fun into a situation how can I expect engagement from the groups I am working with?

next get recordings of kids

what sorts of sounds are they using? how controlled can they be?

how long a silence can it be?

explore these possibilities before they get to hear the recording!

Whilst writing the piece I had tried out some ideas with my school children. At this time I was working with the second group of children I mentioned in the introduction. They were quite familiar with indeterminate scores and the necessity to make

choices about their own performances. I used my time with them to try out what would happen if I conducted them with the same choices which were presented in the score. The question was: could they remember from one sound to the next which pitch they had ended on? Could they grasp the idea that where they arrived at the end of one event was where they started from in the next? This did seem to be the hardest part for them to absorb, but through practice they managed to achieve it. The children enjoyed coming out to the front of the class and choosing the instruction for the rest of the group to follow, and so the piece was formed.

There are three tracks of the EXAUDI workshop on the CD enclosed with the portfolio.14 _{There is some discussion and laughter as the group get their heads}

14 _{Tracks 6, 7 and 8 – track 8 has a full performance of the piece; in tracks 6 and 7 it} is interesting to hear how they try things out and how we unpick the instructions on the score.

42 around what is required, but within the tracks there are some good complete

performances of the piece. Edges Ensemble did not struggle with the logistics of the piece (the format of signalling instructions to the group, altering their pitches and durations of silence, etc.). We have performed other pieces that require

communication across a group and real-time choices, such as Michael Winter’s Small World (2008)15, in which the score is a series of numbers joined by lines, with each number indicating something different and the performer moving down the lines from number to number. There are often options to choose which way to go and which number to play next.

Figure 10—Extract of Small World, by Michael Winter

Small World (2008) involves a similar sort of real-time choice as those within my EXAUDI piece. However, we are not a group who usually use our voices, so some members were more hesitant to be involved than others. We managed a number of beautifully controlled renditions in rehearsals.16

15

http://www.mat.ucsb.edu/~mwinter/works.html - http://www.mat.ucsb.edu/~mwinter/small_world.pdf

16 _{The CD within my composition portfolio has a track (5) recorded unfortunately on a day} when we had a loud marimba playing in the next room. This meant we had many